New iPad benchmarked against Asus Transformer Prime

Apple's claim that the new iPad's A5X processor outperforms the Nvidia Tegra 3 when it comes to graphical power seems to be accurate -- or at least that's what a new test shows.

Australian tech blogger Richie ran a benchmarking test (video below) pitting the new iPad against the Tegra 3-equipped, Android-powered Asus Transformer Prime. He found that the dual-core/four-graphic-core A5X gave much better results than the quad-core/12-graphic core Tegra 3.

Richie, who says he was sceptical of Apple's launch day claims, used GLBenchmark to run the test. With 3D graphics, the Transformer Prime scored 60fps and 73fps respectively in GLBenchmark's Egypt and Pro tests, while the new iPad racked up 140fps and 250fps. Round one to Apple.

Running web browser benchmark BrowserMark, which tests HTML rendering, the new iPad scored 99,561 while the Transformer Prime notched up a slightly better 100,849. In his SunSpider test, which benchmarks Javascript performance (a lower score is better here), the Transformer Prime scored 2,344ms while the new iPad achieved 1,825ms.

So it seems as if the new iPad is a better graphics performer than the Transformer Prime. This isn't the whole story, of course: these are just three benchmarks that can be run across both platforms, and don't always reflect 'real world' performance. Take a look at the comments under the TUAW post of Richie's video to see plenty of interesting viewpoints put across.

Perhaps the best way to really determine the performance gap between the two tablets would be to get the same game running on both and compare them -- but there are always things to consider even here, especially the new iPad's vastly higher display resolution, which demands more graphics grunt than the lower-res screens of rival tablets.

What do you think these benchmarks prove, if anything? Let us know in the comments below.